This is COOL!!!
- Thread starter Knightfall
- Start date
Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
That's it, I'm getting camouflage sceening for my house so they can't find me by satellite.
LightPhoenix
First Post
That's an interesting idea, but I think it suffers from the same problem Wikipedia does - there's a large amount of noise, and a large amount of dubious information. In addition, while I don't know how often Google Maps updates their images, any new buildings are not represented.
To give a couple of examples, I live in an area of Syracuse colloquially known as "The Hill," where among other things is where Syracuse University is located. Right off the bat I noticed that the area east of campus was marked as "Off Campus Housing," which is completely disingenuous. Not only are there a good deal of families that live there (mostly older people), but it's hardly the only off-campus living area in the area. Similarly, I noticed a bunch of addresses where people marked in where they live... this falls under the category of trivial information, and under Wikipedia guidelines would be deleted. Finally, there are a couple of very important new buildings being built on SU campus - a third building for the very well known Newhouse school, and an additional five-story wing for the Life Sciences department. Neither can be found on Google Maps, and thus on Wikimapia, depspite being notable.
To give a couple of examples, I live in an area of Syracuse colloquially known as "The Hill," where among other things is where Syracuse University is located. Right off the bat I noticed that the area east of campus was marked as "Off Campus Housing," which is completely disingenuous. Not only are there a good deal of families that live there (mostly older people), but it's hardly the only off-campus living area in the area. Similarly, I noticed a bunch of addresses where people marked in where they live... this falls under the category of trivial information, and under Wikipedia guidelines would be deleted. Finally, there are a couple of very important new buildings being built on SU campus - a third building for the very well known Newhouse school, and an additional five-story wing for the Life Sciences department. Neither can be found on Google Maps, and thus on Wikimapia, depspite being notable.
LightPhoenix
First Post
Er, if this isn't directed at me, my apologies Waldorf. 
I agree, it's not like it complete destroys the idea; it is harmless. My point is, Wikipedia has protocol, especially regarding trivial information - this allows it a certain degree of usefulness, criticisms regarding truthiness aside. Wikimapia doesn't have this - it's usefulness is therefore diminished, because of an increased volume of noise compared to actual information.
What would be very neat is if this could be integrated with the course-plotting features of Google Maps. That way, instead of needing an address, you simply type in the name of the place (and probably city/state) you're trying to get to.
I agree, it's not like it complete destroys the idea; it is harmless. My point is, Wikipedia has protocol, especially regarding trivial information - this allows it a certain degree of usefulness, criticisms regarding truthiness aside. Wikimapia doesn't have this - it's usefulness is therefore diminished, because of an increased volume of noise compared to actual information.
What would be very neat is if this could be integrated with the course-plotting features of Google Maps. That way, instead of needing an address, you simply type in the name of the place (and probably city/state) you're trying to get to.
Thornir Alekeg
Albatross!
I was thinking what could be really neat is if this same technology could be applied to a campaign setting. Start with large scale maps of the continent, working the scale downward to cities and towns. Gamers could fill in missing information: add a new town to the map in an unmarked area, show the buildings, mark them as homes, inns, shops, temples etc. and let other people fill in some of the details of those buildings. It would take some pretty good moderation to keep things sane, but it could make for an amazingly detailed world without one GM having to do all the work of detailing it out or making it all up on the fly.
Roadkill101
Explorer
Meh, looks like the free trial version of Google-Earth to me minus a few bells and whistles. I can find my house no problem (though the wiki has an much updated photo compared to Google-Earth). Work still isn't showing up in any of the higher resolutions.
Hellhound, IIRC, Google-Earth supports rotating and tilting of the view, but I think those features are reserved for the pay-for version.
Hellhound, IIRC, Google-Earth supports rotating and tilting of the view, but I think those features are reserved for the pay-for version.
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